⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah, said, “Arise, bless the Lord your God forever and ever!
O may Your glorious name be blessed
And exalted above all blessing and praise!
⁶ “You alone are the Lord.
You have made the heavens,
The heaven of heavens with all their host,
The earth and all that is on it,
The seas and all that is in them.
You give life to all of them
And the heavenly host bows down before You.

Nehemiah 9:5-6  (NASB)

Wordless Worship

The Jews have gathered in humble repentance (see yesterday). Their hearts have been prepared. They are ready to worship God. As I read what is written and imagine the setting, I get the sense that words cannot capture what they really want to express. This is not some scripted text they are unemotionally reading. What image comes to mind as you picture this event? Is it:

• 2 Chron 7:1-3 where God filled the newly built temple after Solomon offered his prayer of dedication. Here’s a bit more on that prayer. 
• 1 Kings 18:36-38 where God consumed the sacrifice on the altar, the stones of the altar and the water around it when Elijah called on God to prove He was God, not Baal? More on this event here. 
• Luke 18:35-43 which describes the blind man who Jesus healed who responded by, “following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.”
• Acts 3:1-11 where Peter and John healed a lame man at the temple.
• Maybe you have a personal experience where you were overjoyed with God’s presence and could not speak. In my early days of faith, I was meditating on Psalm 46:10 and received a small understanding of God’s awesomeness and was speechless.
• Enter others in the comments. 

Creator be Praised!

Oh my! Read this passage a few times, slowly, prayerfully – and worship. Understand, this is our God! Can we fathom the heaven of heavens? Count the stars: “we can multiply the number of stars in a typical galaxy (100 billion) by the number of galaxies in the universe (2 trillion). The answer is an absolutely astounding number. There are approximately 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. That’s 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!” (astronomy.com)

Now consider Phil 2:9-11, our Lord Jesus. “9 For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Amen! Hallelujah!